George Russell suggests drastic rule tweak after Red Bull’s “faff” Canada protest

George Russell has urged the FIA to significantly increase the cost of lodging official protests after dismissing Red Bull’s post-race complaint in Canada.

Russell’s victory in Montreal was in jeopardy after Red Bull launched a post-race protest.

Red Bull were unhappy with Russell’s driving behind the Safety Car, which was caused by Lando Norris’ clash with Oscar Piastri.

Red Bull felt that Russell had been driving dangerously and deliberately brake-tested Verstappen to try to get him a penalty.

This was made more evident by Verstappen briefly overtaking Russell behind the Safety Car, which is against F1’s rules.

Five hours after the race ended, the stewards dismissed the protest, meaning Russell kept his first victory of the season.

Toto Wolff described Red Bull’s actions as “petty and childish”.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, George Russell felt the whole ordeal unnecessary.

“It was nothing but seemingly it all came from Red Bull as opposed to Max,” Russell told media, including Crash.net in Austria. “I don’t think Max was even aware of the protest.

“It was pretty clear there was not going to be any penalty. My personal opinion was that they wanted to go on the offensive to protect themselves in case Max got a penalty for going ahead of me during that Safety Car incident so that was my personal view but it was just a bit of a faff. It was not really necessary.”

George Russell's radical suggestion

Currently, F1 teams must pay 2000 euros to launch an official protest.

If successful, teams get that money back.

Russell thinks that if the fee is pushed up to a six-figure sum, then teams would be deterred from launching protests with no good reason.

“Yeah, 100 per cent. When you look at the financial penalties that go around for saying a swear word in the heat of a moment or touching a rear wing or whatever.

“2000 euros for a team that are making nine figure profits it’s not going to even touch the sides or think about twice.Potentially, if that was a six-figure sum to put down then maybe they would think twice.

“Perhaps when it’s something like a protest you obviously get your money back if you win the protest. It’s basically on your own risk but at the moment, 2000 [euros] for a Formula 1 team isn’t even a consideration.”